"Radiophonic minutes of the search for a probably lost tape piece, and a reconstruction thereof with real instruments." Produced by Hessischer Rundfunk (Hessian Broadcasting Corporation), Germany, in 2015. When future Fluxus artist Ben Patterson (1934-2016) traveled to Germany in 1960 in order to study with Karlheinz Stockhausen, he brought along a tape piece that he had produced in Hugh Le Caine's electronic studio in Canada and that he wanted to show to Stockhausen. They met briefly in the context of the World Music Days of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) in Cologne, but Patterson immediately sensed that their aesthetic ambitions and viewpoints differed too much, and in the end, he didn't even present him his piece. Instead, his attention was drawn to the Contre Festival at Mary Bauermeister's studio, a counter event to the ISCM festival presenting works by George Brecht, La Monte Young, John Cage, amongst others. Virtually overnight, Patterson's aesthetic thinking changed radically, and the cornerstone was laid for his coming role within the Fluxus movement. In 2013, Stefan Fricke, editor for new music at Hessischer Rundfunk, approached Patterson about a broadcast of that old tape piece. Patterson didn't know its whereabouts, so Fricke and him together with Cologne-based composer hans w. koch set out for a journey through Patterson's large collection of tapes, some labeled, some unlabeled, sometimes the labels not matching the contents. The journey was recorded with Patterson inserting and ejecting various cassettes, always commenting on what was being heard. In the end, the electronic piece couldn't be found, so it was decided to re-record it using various toys, instruments, and small devices. For the new recording, Patterson brought a score titled "The Three Required Musics" which he considered to be related to the tape piece and which required preparatory work in the form of cutting out colored pieces of paper and pasting them into a time grid. This LP contains the recording of the search on side A and the new recording of the score on side B. It is presented in a full-color sleeve showing a detail of hans w. koch's paper time grid, with liner notes by Stefan Fricke and hans w. koch, and two inserts: the first containing the original score "The Three Required Musics" with new notes by Ben Patterson, the other reproducing koch's complete paper score in A2 format. Edition of 300.

2010 release. Published for the opening of Ben Patterson's first large retrospective exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston, this double CD anthology includes both historical recordings taken from the Early Works, from 370 Flies CDs as well as the first digital version of the no longer available LP titled A Fluxus Elegy and a previously-unpublished track. The first CD starts with the first-ever recording of "Ants" (1960), one of Ben Patterson's first graphic scores, pre-dating the Fluxus group. Also included in this CD are two essential 1961 documents: "Duo for Voice and a String Instrument" and "Variations for Double-bass," both recorded in concert at the Galerie Parnass in 1962; this event has special historic significance in that it included the first public presentation by George Maciunas of his Fluxus manifesto and plans for the Wiesbaden Fluxus Festival. Two more tracks titled "Paper Piece" (1960), the work that cut the umbilical cord to all of the author's previous classical and contemporary musical training and experience, and "Pond" (1962), a piece that reminds of Richard Maxfield's electronic music with voice collage, see the collaboration of Philip Corner, Walter Marchetti and Davide Mosconi. The second CD includes works such as "A Simple Opera" (1995), a repetitive homage to Emmett Willons on his 70th birthday, also recorded in collaboration with Philip Corner, Walter Marchetti and Davide Mosconi; "370 Flies" (2003) for electronic loops and voice; as well as "A Fluxus Elegy" (2006), previously-issued on Alga Marghen's VocSon LP series and based on the basic principles of the polyphonic music of the Bantu tribes of West and Central Africa, applied to the initials of artists listed in Fluxus: The Most Radical and Experimental Art Movement of the Sixties, through encoding them in basic International Morse Code. Starting as a virtuoso double-bass performer of classical music, Ben Patterson was one of the very first founders of the Fluxus Group in Wiesban. This digipak CD will introduce you to some American neo-avant garde music classics, a crossover between John Cage's exploding influences and the experimental art atmosphere of the early 1960s in Europe. Includes a 4-page folded insert with liner notes, the original score, as well as performance photos and the program from the 1962 concert at Galerie Parnass, Wuppertal.

2002 release. Alga Marghen proudly presents the first record ever produced by Ben Patterson: "This is not only my first CD, but also the first recordings of these works available to the general public." Starting as a virtuoso double-bass performer of classical music, Ben Patterson was one of the very first founders of the Fluxus Group in Wiesban. This digipak CD will introduce you to some American neo-avant garde music classics, a crossover between John Cage's exploding influences and the experimental art atmosphere of the early 1960s in Europe. The compact disc program includes two essential 1961 documents: "Duo for Voice and a String Instrument" and "Variations for Double-Bass," both recorded in concert at the Galerie Parnass in 1962; this event has special historic significance in that it included the first public presentation by George Maciunas of his Fluxus manifesto and plans for the Wiesbaden Fluxus Festival. "Duo" was Patterson's most ambitious and lost attempt to combine graphic notation and chance operations for the realization of a performance score, while "Variations" represents the moment when, unexpectedly, out of some unknown place, something new entered the process -- humor! The other three tracks were recorded in Milano especially for this release; a collaboration with Philip Corner, Walter Marchetti, Davide Mosconi, and a few more friends. These newly-recorded pieces include "A Simple Opera" (1995), a repetitive homage to Emmett Williams on his 70th birthday; "Paper Piece" (1960), the work that cut the umbilical cord to all of the author's previous classical and contemporary musical training and experience, and "Pond" (1961), a piece that reminds of Richard Maxfield's electronic music with voice collage. The edition includes a fold-out 16-page insert with original scores and photos.